Shinhwa The Grand Tour in Singapore 2012 "The Return"

Yes! Yes! Yes!

I went to Shinhwa's concert last Saturday! Woo-hoo~~!!

It took me a long time to decide if I wanted to go to their concert or not.

Cons:
- the crowd (I don't like too much crowd)
- the screaming (ya know, those girls screaming at every little things their oppas do on stage...sigh...)
- the price (the tickets were not cheap!)

Pros:
- it's SHINHWA!!!- it's SHINHWA!!!
- it's SHINHWA!!!

So that's it... the cons were defeated easily by the fact that they are SHINHWA!!!

The Ticket

By the time I became a fan of Shinhwa, it was around 2 weeks before their concert. All the good seats (category 1) were sold out, except for the seats on far left/right blocks. So I opted to look for outside seller. I browsed eBay, gumtree, and any local forums to look for anyone selling concert tickets. And luckily I managed to find one ticket, second block from the center, 7th rows, sold for 275 dollars (4 dollars more expensive than the original price - good enough for me).

The Venue

The concert was held in Compass Ballrom, Resort World Sentosa.
I reached there at around 430 PM and there wasn't much people there yet, except a queue for mosh pits.

central entrance

mosh pit queue

a huge Shinhwa poster - a lot of girls had their picture taken in front of this

The official merchandise of this concert included light sticks (sold out), t-shirts, earphone jack cap, boutonniere, clear file set, and posters set. By the time I check the booth, all navy t-shirts were sold out and only left with the white ones (I bought one after a very quick thinking, luckily I didn't take a long time to think and just bought it when I got there, because when I went back from dinner at around 615 PM, all t-shirts were sold out!).

The entrance was opened at around 630 - I got in right away.

the view from my seat - the stage is so close!

cat 1 seats and cat 2 seats at the back

cat 1 seats and cat 3 seats at the left side

The Concert

It started at a few minutes after 7 PM - quite on time.
Phone cameras are allowed in the ballroom, however since there were too many movements from Shinhwa members, it was difficult to get a clear and nice shot.. boo hoo... :-(
Oh well, I just wait for the fan cam pictures.

This is one of the clearest pictures I got from the encore:

The Highlight

- Before the guys went to the stage, a video was played in the big screen, and then the names of the members were shown in huge and fancy fonts in the order from the oldest to the youngest member.  And for each name shown, a deafening scream filled up the ballroom. I was like, "what the...?!?". There wasn't even a picture of them, it was only a NAME written on the screen and every body went crazy! It got me wondering that if I was in my late teenage year, or even early 20s, would I scream along with them too? -_-'

- For the first song, the guys showed up from behind the huge screen on the stage wearing a white suit, and my first impression was, wow... this is real! I am watching Shinhwa's concert! That's them in person! Eric is so tall! Min-woo is indeed much shorter than Eric!

- When they went to the part of the stage that was right in front of my seat block, a whole bunch of thoughts came to my mind: Damn! Eric looked so fine! Hye-Sung is very pretty! Jun Jin and Min-Woo are fairer than in TV shows! Their faces are so smooth! Eric is very very tall! They are much more handsome in reality than in pictures or tv shows!

- I actually expected to hear Hye-Sung, Andy and Eric speaking in English as I understand that they spent their teenage years in US, however among all of them, only Eric greeted the audience in English and his English is quite good, almost no accent. The only English from Hye-Sung was "What's going on?", and from Andy was "Say XXX!" (XXX is the name of Shinhwa's member). And unexpectedly, Min-Woo spoke more English words than those two, and his pronunciation was pretty good considering he has no English upbringing - maybe Eric helps with that too.

- Eric was being Eric I suppose. He didn't talk as much as Min-Woo, but he circled around the stage quite frequently, waved a lot, and he even wore a bunny-ear hairband during encore - after Min-Woo started it.

- Min-Woo was very friendly and chatty. He tried to engage the audience as much as he could, he seemed so cheerful and happy.

- Dong-Wan was not feeling well. He seemed distant and didn't talk nor smile much. His face was pale too. Poor Dong-Wan. He even said sorry for not being in his best condition for the concert.

- Hye-Sung was very very pretty! - I can't seem to get enough of saying that. Most of the time he just stood there, sang his whole heart out, and being pretty. 

- Jun Jin was not as chatty as Min-Woo, but he seemed enjoying the concert as well.

- Andy, there was one moment in the concert when everyone was walking around the stage, and Andy sat at the edge of the stage and made the girl-fans go crazy!

- I will surely attend their concert again if ever they are coming to Singapore again!

Shinhwa - The Longest Running Idol Group

I've heard about Shinhwa few years ago when I started going into kpop in 2008... Actually when I first got to know about this group, I was kinda cynical about it. I mean, a boyband with 3 singers and 3 rappers must not be that good after all, right? Having designated rappers would mean that each of their song will feature rapping part - an idea that I found ridiculous since not all kinds of songs would require rap in it. So then, mercilessly, I overlooked them and joined DBSK's shippers.

Not until last year I heard about the long-awaited end of Eric's, Shinhwa's, leader military duty some time around the end of 2010, and his drama comeback, Myung-wol the Spy, which was a total mess, by the way. But since my curiosity won over my dysfunctional and yet better judgment (as usual), I watched the drama anyway.

The drama, as I've mentioned earlier, sucked. It started off quite well actually, until the writer somehow got the logic side of her/his brain impaired and the plot went downhill from fun and interesting to just simply silly and not making any sense at all. The height of the stupidity reached its peak when the lead actor slapped the lead actress and never in one scene, he said sorry or expressed his remorse for what he has done.

Anyway, one good thing from that drama is that I got to know Eric, the leader of Shinhwa, and I have to admit, he is one darn handsome guy - I always have a thing for tanned Korean actors.

From Eric, I then know Shin Hye-sung, one hell of a good ballad singer, check out his song featuring Eric and Nam Gyu-Ri:
note: it's awesome!

At this point, Hye-sung has had himself a new fan (me!).
I know about the rest of Shinhwa's member: Lee Min-Woo, Kim Dong-Wan, Jun Jin, and Andy - but none of them impressed me (yet).

Until recently, I started watching Shinhwa's Broadcast (신화 방송), thanks to a generous and dedicated subber I found in youtube, Jeannious1128, I am able to watch subbed episodes of 신화 방송 weekly (I do hope she will keep subbing the show).

This show made me a new fan of Shinhwa. I know that even variety shows in Korea are all scripted or half-scripted, however nevertheless, in the shooting process, the casts are subjected to show few sides of their personality, and so far, I'm very much amused by their quirk and "craziness".

Eric, the leader, the main rapper, a guy who tries to keep his cool on camera almost all the time, but in recent episodes has seemed to be more comfortable and displays some of his quirks. He is known to be the one with 4D personality.

Lee Min-Woo, the second oldest member of the group, a good dancer and singer, seemed earnest and sincere in what he does, a good speaker (he talks way more often than Eric, the leader - usually leader is the chatty one), often complains about his height and how Eric, despite having height of more than 180 cm, is still wearing height insoles.

Kim Dong-Wan, the witty guy, often says things without really thinking it through, and always followed by "I'm sorry" at the end. But it's clear he's a hard-worker and a good singer, I think he's a strong singer than Min-Woo as I find that Min-Woo's voice is more on the popular side, not strong, but easy to the ear, while Dong-Wan's is more on a stronger side, more powerful, and maybe better in singing ballad.

Shin Hye-Sung, the little prince, the pretty boy of the group, though he's reached his 30s, his face is yet still on the 20s side, famously for being vain, great and strong voice - same both in recording and live most of the time, known as worse dancer in Shinhwa, seemed perfectionist as well.

Jun Jin, the comic guy, started of as a rapper, but now he's one of the singers in Shinhwa. Not quite as strong as Dong-Wan nor Hye-Sung, but he's quite good too. Known to make up lies in TV shows to make things interesting, and other members often call him out of it. He's the one who seems to be very much comfortable in variety shows.

Andy, the rapper, the youngest (or maknae), seems a reserved kind of guy but he has quite good business instinct apparently, as his company manages TEEN TOP and it's pretty successful so far.

And together six of them, are SHINHWA!!

Having been around since 1998, they seem to be still going strong. Their bond is strong, and that also thanks to the leader, Eric, who sticked with them even though he was offered a high pay contract by their first management company and together they left the company.

Their latest album, The Return, was released on 24 March 2012. It consists of 11 tracks with their title track, Venus:

My fave tracks are "On The Road", "Hurts", "Be My Love", and "Welcome".

And regardless that they are still a boyband after all, I'm actually more comfortable calling them a MANband. Because what I see is not 6 boys anymore, they are 6 grown-up men who knows what they want and work hard to reach the place where they are right now, and they are still working hard... ;)